The drudgery of continually being unsurprised might finally ruin us. Unfortunately, whichever president is inaugurated next year will want to increase spending. The level will simply be a matter of degree: it’s not whether or not I’ll help you kick your keg but rather how much of a dent I’ll put in it.
Conservative hopes to sober up and retake the presidency have been dashed unless there’s a Reagan ex machina-style brokered convention. But they may get what’s unfortunately the next-best thing, namely a Republican. Elected party members are renowned for attempting to waste what’s yours in a marginally gradual manner. We’d welcome it if they proved our perception wrong.
And we all obsess over taking the presidency. All political observers tend to focus on the federal government’s most prominent third. It’s easiest to blame an individual when your season heads south, which is why coaches and not players get fired.
But dismayed conservatives need to ensure politicians get off to a good start. Namely, they must ensure that Congress sends as little junk up Pennsylvania Avenue to be autographed as possible. Yelling at your respective provincial delegation to the federal government would work better than the present system, whereby nothing works at all.
Barack Obama may not be big with formalities such as making sure his new laws were bills first. But my copy of the Constitution indicates that budgeting begins in Congress. Despite the imperial demeanor of the great equalizing president, Obama can’t sign anything from a scheme to community organize health care to propping up America’s largest abortion factory without first holding two votes.
Your congressional and senatorial choices should “yea” to his will as infrequently as possible. Also, infrequently should be the same as never.
Conservatives are going to have to continually scold whoever wins. We’re certainly already used to doing so with the title holder, and we would be able to significantly tone down our justified outrage if one of these Republican schlubs pulls it off. But we need to make a U-turn away from the precipice, not merely decelerate into oblivion.
We could only wish that Mitt Romney first decided he was a conservative, then ran. He wants to duct tape the rotted planks instead of just replacing them, which is why we must put our congresspeople in our contact list next to the pizza man’s number.
The man who may still end up running for Earth’s most important job despite a lack of non-Coulter support will need congressional supervision if he pulls off a win against its rather incompetent holder. Your bomb shelter could use more bourbon.
Voters feel as if they should be using Google to translate what Romney says into conservative. Similarly, his habit of repeating the word “conservative” is akin to a restaurant billing itself as “world famous:” they wouldn’t need to say it if true.
Four years of a supremely liberal or lukewarm right-leaning president would create another fun reason to incessantly hassle your legislator. Who thought that Congress could keep things from getting worse, if not exactly better?
Our largely lousy representatives may nonetheless be the only reason that top earners pay 35 percent of their income instead of keeping that amount. By contrast, enacting a 65 percent top marginal rate would be what Obama considers a good start.
Congress might be the only entity slowing the Greecification rate. They’re our only hope, which is as frightening as it sounds.
Any of the three genuine Republican hopefuls would push bigger spending to some degree. The chief difference between Romney and Obama seems to be scope, although at least the former is the only one of the pair who likes the country he hopes to run.
Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is a conservative in the same sense that George W. Bush is, which is to say in every way except for using federal money to promote an agenda. The best thing about a Santorum presidency is that he wouldn’t be able to propose limiting freedom from the Senate chamber. And Newt Gingrich wants to flaunt America’s greatness by spending all its money.
Even if Republicans put Obama into the private sector for the first time despite the woeful quality of their opponents, it won’t be time to rest and celebrate. We’ll get maybe a moment to sigh before making sure all our money isn’t spent on, say, anti-gambling patrols, a Masscare bailout, or a life-sized Lego moon base.
It’s crucial to nominate and vote for small-government fans to represent both your district and state. Whoever the president is should have to face a Republican House margin greater than 51. Speaking of the magical number of 51, it’s past time to recapture the upper chamber.
Conservatives should campaign and vote for gridlock even if a Republican wins the presidency. Any of the three would obviously be better than Obama by default, but we still must forestall any big-government ambitions in the lobby.
Otherwise, we’ll just keep having to dig sub-basements. Burrowing even deeper would create construction work, at least according to those who still believe the government can provoke the economy to bloom.
Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. He tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.
